Current Theater Reference Projects 2018

Twen­ty-five years after the launch of Chain­Mas­ter pro­duc­ts, the com­pa­ny based in Sax­o­ny, Ger­ma­ny, has grown to beco­me one of the world’s lea­ding manu­fac­tu­rers of hoist tech­no­lo­gy in the event indus­try, offe­ring a com­pre­hen­si­ve ran­ge of pro­duc­ts for ever­ything from set-up ope­ra­ti­ons and com­plex sce­nic move­ments, to com­ple­te auto­ma­ti­on of thea­ter and ope­ra house per­for­man­ces around the glo­be.

The latest refe­rence pro­jec­ts for the chain hoist spe­cia­lists from Eilen­burg inclu­de the Zarya­dye Con­cert Hall and the Heli­con Thea­ter in Moscow, Rus­sia. For the Zarya­dye Con­cert Hall, twen­ty-four chain hoists with 500 kg load capa­ci­ty and twen­ty chain hoists with 1000 kg load capa­ci­ty were inte­gra­ted into the exis­ting in-house con­trol sys­tem. The new hoists are equip­ped with abso­lu­te value enco­ders and load mea­su­ring cells and com­ply with DGUVV17 (form­er­ly BGV-C1). The instal­la­ti­on was car­ri­ed out by the local sales and instal­la­ti­on part­ners Stroy­scirc and Doka Cen­ter. In the Heli­con Thea­ter, they deci­ded on a chain hoist sys­tem for the set-up ope­ra­ti­on in accordance with DGUVV17. The sys­tem con­sists of thir­ty-two chain hoists with 500kg load capa­ci­ty and a Chain­Mas­ter Pro­touch Sta­ge­Ope­ra­tor con­trol. The tech­ni­cal imple­men­ta­ti­on also was rea­li­zed by Doka Cen­ter.

In the cour­se of the moder­ni­za­ti­on of the Gess­ne­ral­le Thea­ter in Zurich, twen­ty-eight exis­ting BGV-C1 chain hoists with a load capa­ci­ty of 800kg were updated. The choice was made to install the Pro­touch Sta­ge­Ope­ra­tor sys­tem here as well. The chain hoists were equip­ped with incre­men­tal enco­ders and load-mea­su­ring shack­les in the Eilen­burg fac­to­ry and sub­jec­ted to a UVV (acci­dent pre­ven­ti­on regu­la­ti­ons) test befo­re reinstal­la­ti­on. Chain­Mas­ter offers a varie­ty of upgrade solu­ti­ons for exis­ting first-genera­ti­on chain hoists, ran­ging from set-up ope­ra­ti­ons to SIL3-cer­ti­fied sce­nic use, to allow custo­mers to fur­ther uti­li­ze their hoists.
Ano­t­her out­stan­ding pro­ject in the field of thea­ter instal­la­ti­on is the reno­va­ti­on of the over­head machine­ry in the Krem­lin Sta­te Palace Thea­ter Moscow. In 2003, Chain­Mas­ter sup­plied a chain hoist sys­tem with com­pu­ter con­trol, which, after 15 years of reli­able work, is being repla­ced by the cur­rent SIL3-cer­ti­fied XYZ Con­trol Sys­tem. The num­ber of chain hoists has increa­sed from for­ty fixed-speed dri­ves to fif­ty-four new dri­ves with 500kg load capa­ci­ty and varia­ble speed con­trol up to 19m/min. The tech­ni­cal imple­men­ta­ti­on is being car­ri­ed out by the part­ner com­pa­nies SIM and Stroy­scirc and should be com­ple­ted by the end of the year.

Major project for ChainMaster at the Olympics in Sochi

From 7 to 23 Febru­a­ry, the glo­bal eli­te of win­ter sports will be gathe­ring in the Rus­si­an town of Sochi for the XXIIth Win­ter Olym­pics, in the hunt for gold, sil­ver and bron­ze medals. In all, sin­ce the games were awar­ded to Sochi, ele­ven com­pe­ti­ti­on venues have been crea­ted in and around the Black Sea resort. In equip­ping several of the venues in the Olym­pic Park, the orga­ni­zers have reli­ed inter alia on the know-how of Chain­Mas­ter of Eilen­burg; nume­rous pro­duc­ts from the ran­ge of the manu­fac­tu­rer of chain hoists and lif­ting gear are being employ­ed at the Sochi games. Chain­Mas­ter has been active in Rus­sia and the neigh­bou­ring sta­tes sin­ce 1998, and in 2004 ope­ned Chain­Mas­ter Con­sul­ting Office Rus­sia.

In addi­ti­on to several smal­ler pro­jec­ts, ChainMaster’s activi­ties in Sochi have main­ly cent­red on equip­ping the Bols­hoy Ice Dome and the Ice­berg Ska­ting Palace, each of which is capa­ble of accom­mo­da­ting up to 12,000 spec­ta­tors. It is plan­ned to sta­ge the ice hockey matches in the Bols­hoy Ice Dome and the artis­tic and short track ice ska­ting events in the Ice­berg Ska­ting Palace.
In each of the­se are­nas, Chain­Mas­ter equip­ment forms part of a varie­ty of instal­la­ti­ons – most nota­b­ly the sys­tem for rai­sing and lowe­ring the two giant video cubes. Here, safe­ty was the para­mount con­cern gover­ning the choice of equip­ment, the objec­ts in ques­ti­on being extre­me­ly hea­vy. Four Chain­Mas­ter dual-chain BGVD8 Jum­bo Lifts capa­ble of lif­ting safe­ly up to twel­ve tons have the­re­fo­re been assi­gned to each cube.
Desi­gned for hea­vy loads, the­se hoists are con­trol­led using a Pro Touch Sta­ge­Ope­ra­tor solu­ti­on from the CM 880 series, which boasts load mea­su­rement and user-fri­end­ly posi­tio­ning func­tions. The CM 880 series dis­plays loads and posi­ti­ons con­ti­nuous­ly, the over­load and under­load thres­holds being free­ly con­fi­gura­ble. Fur­ther­mo­re the sys­tem offers syn­chro­nous run super­vi­si­on for fixed-speed chain hoists as well as the pos­si­bi­li­ty of pro­gra­ming both rela­ti­ve and abso­lu­te tar­get runs for sin­gle, line and dis­tri­bu­t­ed loads. Safe hois­ting of the loads is the­re­fo­re assu­red even when, as is here the case, they are being rai­sed to heights in excess of 30 metres.
In the Bols­hoy Ice Dome, Chain­Mas­ter also pro­vi­ded the pre-rig for the flag sys­tem typi­cal­ly seen at inter­na­tio­nal spor­ting events. For this, the company’s experts instal­led 108 Chain­Mas­ter D8 Plus rig­ging lifts, each with a safe working load of 250 kg and a limit switch func­tion, gover­ned by an 128-chan­nel con­trol sys­tem from the CM 801 series.

In the Ice­berg Ska­ting Palace, Chain­Mas­ter also paved the way for the rig­ging of the sound sys­tem and struc­tu­re of ligh­t­ing trus­ses. For the audio sys­tem, four Chain­Mas­ter D8 hoists with dual bra­kes com­bi­ned with the Chain­Mas­ter Pro Touch Sta­ge­Ope­ra­tor were used, whilst for the ligh­t­ing trus­ses, the spe­cia­lists from Eilen­burg opted for six­ty Chain­Mas­ter D8 rig­ging lifts with bra­ke func­tions con­trol­led by a 64-chan­nel sys­tem from the CM 801 series.
The con­trol­lers of the CM 801 series offer, depen­ding upon the requi­re­ment pro­fi­le, cen­tral and de-cen­tra­li­zed con­trol sys­tems assem­bled from more than 40 com­pon­ents that are all com­pa­ti­ble with one ano­t­her, such as motor dis­tri­bu­tors and ope­ra­ting ele­ments. They are sui­ta­ble for the direct con­trol of all Chain­Mas­ter D8/D8 Plus chain hoists.
All the mate­ri­al sup­plied will remain in use when the Win­ter Olym­pics are over, as it can be employ­ed in a very wide varie­ty of con­fi­gu­ra­ti­ons wit­hout any con­ver­si­on mea­su­res being requi­red. Fur­ther­mo­re, the CM 801 series is upwards com­pa­ti­ble with the CM 880 series, which opens the door to still fur­ther pos­si­ble uses.